"Foolish big brother! Your plan to suffocate the life out of me with my own toys has failed! However, I am slightly peeved with Food Source for laughing and taking a picture of me instead of removing Mr. Inch Worm from my head. I shall have to remember that when I have teeth to bite her with."This was the scene earlier today when I was making tacos and Gutsy was amusing Spawnling in the infant swing. I asked if he could give him a toy. One toy. One.
My child has a math deficiency. Apparently counting to 1 is a challenge for him.
This post is all about Gutsy. Everyone needs one of him. Well, everyone with no heart problems, no pre-existing anxiety issues, an abundant sense of humour and the patience of a saint. Gutsy is the child we tried and tried and tried to have. We went through a miscarriage, we got on the reproductive endocronologist list, I saw a naturopath, I cried a lot, I worked my ass off (literally as well as figuratively) and, lo and behold, five years later I had Gutsy staring me in the face after 27 hours of labour and a cesarean.
Now, at four, he is everything to an extreme. Yesterday and today were no exceptions.
Yesterday, he came upstairs while I was on the phone with Impossible MOM. He was wearing a pyjama shirt on his lower half, the sleeves up his legs, the neck around his waist and a large, dangling mass of cloth between his legs.
"Look mom!" said Gutsy, swaying his hips around like a hula dancer. "I have a GIANT PENIS! See my GIANT PENIS?!"
There are probably several right things to say or do at that exact moment. I highly doubt laughing one's ass off is one of them, but that's exactly what I did. What else was I supposed to do? Say 'Oh, you're right, Gutsy. That is a giant penis!'?
And then there was today... I aptly call this 'Things you shouldn't do even if they seem like an okay idea at the time'.
It seemed like a good idea at the time to leave Spawnling on the floor for two minutes while I ran downstairs to switch the laundry loads.
It seemed like a good idea at the time to let Gutsy stay upstairs watching television at the same time.
It seemed like a good idea that, while downstairs for two seconds, I could briefly check my email. Everything was quiet up there and I figured if Spawnling started to fuss Gutsy would either call out for me or get him his pacifier.
Two minutes. Just two minutes.
Gutsy did come downstairs, but I didn't hear a crying Spawnling. Strange.
'Hey, mom. Want to know what I did? I did something neat!'
For those of you without four-year-olds, I'm going to pass down a bit of wisdom: This is NEVER a good sentence. Never.
'Oh? What did you do?' I asked cautiously.
'I put Spawnling on the ottoman! He's really happy there!'
'Wha... Oh my god!'
And sure enough, there was Spawnling, sprawled out happily on the oversized livingroom ottoman not three inches from the edge. He was babbling contentedly, fist stuck in his mouth, drool everywhere and not a care in the world.
My heart lost about 10 years worth of beats in five seconds. It seemed like a good idea, but it was really, really stupid. Way to go, Maven.
But it just goes to show that imcompetence makes for a really good blog entry.
Mother of the year I am now. Maven of mayhem I most surely am.